THE BACK SEAT OF A CADILLAC

It wasn’t a car wreck, and it wasn’t losing my virginity. Something else entirely happened to me in the back seat of a Cadillac.

By the time I was about 10 years old, I had the beginnings of a music collection. My mom would take me to K-Mart or even better, to My Generation, the record store in the Great Northern Mall’s food court, where I was allowed to buy 45s and cassettes. I had singles at home on vinyl, like Loverboy’s “Lovin’ Every Minute Of It” and a growing stack of tapes by Michael Jackson, Madonna, Men at Work, Billy Joel, and I just realized I’ve blocked this out for years—Olivia Newton-John. But I think I can be forgiven for that. I was so young and naïve I didn’t even understand what she meant when she sang “Let’s Get Physical”.

By the time I was approaching my teens, my music purchases reflected an interest developing beyond Top 40 pop. David Guia, the coolest older kid on my suburban street, introduced me to Ratt. Soon, I had their debut “Out of the Cellar” in my collection. To me, this was heavy metal music. Songs like “Wanted Man” and their MTV hit “Round and Round” had the most aggressive distorted guitars and rockin’ vocals to reach my pre-pubescent ears. David thought Ratt was so cool that he recruited me and two other kids on the street to form a tribute air band. In order to imitate the “Round and Round” video, we constructed instruments out of cardboard, colored with markers, and I distinctly remember an argument about who got to wear the one pair of red parachute pants we had between the four of us.

I was really into “Out of the Cellar”, and its still important in my musical development, because this Ratt cassette proved to be a gateway drug to a more potent addiction, one that overpowered me one day, riding in the back of my mom’s maroon Cadillac coupe.

When my parents drove me somewhere, I’d often bring my Sony Walkman cassette player, since it enabled me to avoid the elevator music they listened to. I’d drown it out with, of course, Ratt, but also other bands I had discovered with similar vibes—Poison and Motley Crue were a couple other favorites. My collection was growing with the help of a music buying club I had joined. “Buy 2 Cassettes, Get 10 Free!” or something like that. I remember looking through the buying club catalog, picking the tapes I wanted for sure, and then trying to figure out which supposedly free recording to get. The one choice I remember making is Metallica’s “Master of Puppets”. I had never heard a note of Metallica’s music, but I had read the name in a letter to the editor in a music magazine. The letter writer had asked for some recommendations for new music, and this band had been mentioned. That’s all I knew. The tape was free. I took a chance and checked the box for Metallica. Weeks later, the order arrived.

On the day the cassette order arrived, I had to go somewhere with my parents, so I grabbed my Walkman and some of my new shrink-wrapped tapes to try out, “Master of Puppets” among them. It happened to be the first one I popped in.

I remember learning a valuable lesson shortly after hitting the play button on my Walkman that day, and that is this—Ratt, Poison, and Motley Crue—they’re not heavy metal. I made this discovery about 37 seconds into the first song on “Master of Puppets”, a savage tune called “Battery.” The song starts out deceptively, with a couple of acoustic guitars, the lead instrument skipping along in a pretty little melody. You can almost picture a bucolic scene of open, green pastures, birds singing, a blue sky adorned with puffy white clouds. A couple of peaceful, long-haired guys are sitting on rocks, playing the song. But suddenly, the sky turns black, the birds’ throats are cut, and the men turn into giants with electric guitars the size of jumbo jets and amplifiers the size of Everest. The pretty melody electrifies, multiplies, and soars into the darkness, before crashing into the now boiling earth. And then the sky itself shatters to reveal there’s an army of demons descending upon what’s left to shred it with their rows of razor teeth.

I’m sittin’ in the back of that Cadillac thinkin’ “Holy Shit! Now THIS is HEAVY METAL.” It was a moment of revelation. “Battery” is the most immense, utterly devastating and intense piece of music I had ever heard. And fast. Machine gun fast, about 190 beats per minute. It made Ratt sound like they played lullabyes.

"Master of Puppets" opened so many doors and seared so many firsts into my brain. I had never heard an anti-war anthem before listening to “Disposable Heroes”, and I’m yet to hear one so powerful and appropriately brutal. I’d never heard a heavy metal instrumental before the expansive, dynamic “Orion”. I’d never realized that rock could be so deadly serious, so potent, so PHYSICAL.

My reaction to this album was, and still is, visceral. It bumps up my blood pressure, increases my heart rate, practically flexes my muscles. It makes me think “YES!” There’s an energy that flies out of the speakers and penetrates my vital organs, and it makes me feel good. Really good, like no music ever had before. "Master of Puppets" made me realize I didn’t just like music, I needed music.

And, it beat the hell out of Olivia Newton-John.

--Attila